A mile long and a third of Manhattan Isle's width, Central Park is a swath of rich green nature in the middle of the urban jungle of New York City. From cultured gardens, to lakes and ice rinks, to zoos, museums, and forests, this park almost has it all.

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Central Park. At night. Very different than the day, as it becomes a bit darker. And a bit more dangerous.There are still people moving along the paths, but they tend to stick to the brightly lit and patrolled areas, or near the streets bordering the park. But not everyone. It's also an excellent place for more private meetings.

The slender man in the overcoat accompanied by two people who just scream 'thug' grins. After all, his people are pointing the guns. "Yeah, but…well, ya ain't been in th' acquisitions business in a long time, Lex. My old man was fine workin' with ya…me, I hear ya tried to get legit, so I don't see me gettin' much from you. Gotta cut my losses, capische?"

Ah, what a night. The gig in the local bar went well and the younger local band has taken over the stage. It leaves Lewis with the rest of the night free. The bright glow of his cigarette highlights his face and glitters in his eyes as he walks along through the park. It's not really on his way home but it's a good place for some privacy, so he can fly up and then get to his high rise apartment.

Tonight, Lewis really doesn't feel up to dealing with more humans.

Which is exactly what happens he steps into the middle of this 'private' meeting.

The green-eyed elf looks up from having been just half day-dreaming as he walked; the sound of voices pulling him from his reverie.

Ah, owl pellets.

"That hurts Bill. It really does. What happened ta loyalty?" Lexi says, frowning as she glances between the two thugs. "I mean, it gets out yer turning on yer customers…." Bill shrugs. "Eh. You'll be dead. Another dead mutie, no one's gonna care about anyway. I get th' artifact, I get th' money yer carryin', I go home an' have a nice nightcap." Lexi sighs. "…yer a real winner, buddy." Her fingers twitch like a gunfighter's getting ready to draw. But..still two guns on her.

Man this is just gonna HURT…

Seeing this, Lewis frowns. Guns are loud, and they hurt his head, and maybe he never really has gotten over the kneejerk reaction of flying for the nearest hidey hole at the sound. Blame the musket. Horrible things. He scans over the area, noting how it seems that thus far he has not been noticed.

A brow quirks at an idea.

Savith was never the strongest flyer among his kind. But he was nimble with it. It is this nimbleness he leans on now.

At his side, his fingers twitch.

He may not like guns, but he has studied them enough to know that they have safeties, and after these few moments he finds them and with his telekinesis gently flicks all of the safeties ON.

There. That will keep them from making that High Ones' Cursed sound. Lewis brings the cigarette back to his lips for a pull.

Bill grins, lighting up a cigarette as Lexi stills a bit. "Bye bye ya fuckin'…thing." He waves to his men, turning away as they raise their guns to shoot as Lexi winces.

Click. Click.

The two thugs blink, then identically look at their guns in confusion.

Lexi blinks…and then her arms snap forward as long whip-like tendrils shoot out and land with a CRACK like a bullwhip, the two thugs going flying through the air to land heavily, their guns going flying. Bill whips around, his eyes wide as Lexi starts stalking for forward. "So, now…about my artifact…." She hasn't noticed Savith yet either, but, well, she's a little distracted. Or at least, focused.

The guns so flying, Lewis tracks them through the exhales of smoke. His mind collects them, floating them in the darkness overhead, until they are behind him. He'll gather them up and drop them off at the police station later. For now, while taking another drag, he watches the sandwich-eating purple skinned woman stalk her prey.

Bill ers. "Whaddya lying' down on the GROUND FOR, GET UP YA MOOKS!" The two thugs grown, starting ot sit up, then the whips come slamming back down, curling to jab hard in their solar plexuses, causing both to wheeze then throw up. At that point, Bill turns to run as one of the tendrils shoots out, grabbing him around the waist as he lets out a high pitched squeal, the other snagging the briefcase he's been carrying that presumably has the item Lexi came to purchase, pulling it out of his grasp easily.

That accomplished, Lexi sighs, then pops open the briefcase to peer at what's inside…which Savith will sense has a….familiar sensation. That's not just any artifact. It's…possibly of his people, from the feel.

It's almost amusement that Savith feels as he watches the interplay. Last drag taken, Lewis drops it to the ground, squashing it with his mind rather than with his heel. Why dirty his shoe, after all? About to turn to go the sudden wash of a magic he had almost forgotten reaches out and grabs him. He snaps his head around, mentally locking onto the thing, and just yanking to toward himself.

The guns? Forgotten. They fall to a disorderly heap behind him. Compared to the thing his hand reaches out for, the guns hold no importance. His cheeks are pale, eyes wide, mind racing.

The motion out of the corner of her eye cause Lexi to spin, her tendrils curling up like cobras to either side as she hugs the briefcase to her chest, snapping it closed reflexively, then blinking. "…Lewis?" she says after a moment, looking unsure. "What…" She relaxes slightly. "What are ya doing here?!?"

The moment there's resistance, Lewis lets up on his pull. Green eyes blink, as if coming back to himself. His mind and his magic sense, stays as locked as he can on the case.

"Just… passing through. What's in the case?" Another step forward it taken.

"Oh. Uh. So…prob'ly best if ya just forget ya saw those guys, they're kinda jerks." She says after a moment, chewing her lower lip, then glances down at the case. "…ah….well, nothing ILLEGAL…technically." she points out. "Maybe, ya know, not normally th' way ya go about acquirin' artifacts, but this one wasn't doin' anyone any good where it was in some fence's warehouse…" She frowns a bit. "Why?"

Illegal. Savith is not so completely worried about human laws, and yet he understand their usefulness and so the word illegal has him frowning. More steps are taken to bring him to Lexi.

"It feels of magic, elfin magic. May I see it?" might as well go with honesty.

Lexi hesitates. "Wait…ya can tell that?" she says slowly, then frowns a bit, before she carries it over to a picnic table nearby to set it down and opens it up. Inside is a statue, carved of a soft nearly translucent stone, that resembles a stylized human. Or a more accurate elf, perhaps. "I got this because it's supposed ta be associated with a metahuman from the Sassanid Empire…" she says, watching.

Lewis nods, eyes rarely straying from the briefcase and never fully meeting Lexi's gaze. He follows along, footfalls nearly silent as he walks at her side. He peers at the artifact, four fingered hand reaching out to collect it. He runs his fingertips over it, expression aging him. Alone in this world of humans, the elf peers at this stature of one of his kind, drinking in the figure's features as if it's been lifetimes since he's seen another elf.

Thousands of years count as lifetimes. He sinks back, as if sitting on a chair, only there is nothing and he is floats there in his invisible chair, peering at the statue.

The resemblances are uncanny.

The mauve mutant kind of stares as…well, Lewis sits down in midair. "…ooookay. So…uh…ya…know what this is?" she says slowly, moving over to perch on the bench. "Or…yer magical enough ta maybe figure it out?"

"Yes." His voice is soft, like his speaking from a long way off. Mentally, maybe he is a long way off.

"It's just a statue. Of an elf. Of who…? I don't… I don't remember. This magic… I've felt before; like an old friend, a comfortable uniform," he's murmuring, half-formed thoughts creating half-formed words on his lips.

"Shaped by elfin hands and elfin hearts," he continues, sadness and envy in his tone. Even after all this time, he still envies those that can hear rock sing to them.

"…an…elf?" Lexi questions slowly. "Like…a fae? Shining Folk? Or…Ljosalfar, from the Norse myths? I mean, Thor exists, supposedly, so…um…" She pauses, pulling her tendrils back into her arms, leaving a little swirl on either side where they vanish. "Okay. Right. So…you….obviously recognize it. Is…are you..?" She trails off, a bit unsure about how to ask this.

"Elf. Faekind. The Seelie. They've had many names over the centuries. Yes, Shining Folk. Yes, Ljosalfar, Alftar, Svartalftar. The Northmen tribe had many names for elves," says the elf, voice and expression still wistful, still making him seem every year of his thousands long life.

"I don't, really. Maybe I want to, so much that I think I do. But… I don't think I really do. I've forgotten too much to know whose Face this is or whose Heart shaped this likeness." And the admission stings. It stings deep down, against an old wound that cries with his voice, screaming for parents he was told had abandoned him, with the voice of those two young children, his own progeny, whom he…

Lewis inhales, forcing himself up and out of that darker train of thought.

"It's fine. It's not your fault. I'm old and I've forgotten more than is probably healthy," Lewis says, turning the statue over and about to peer at something other than the face. In so turning though, the statue is facing Lexi, giving the mutant a side by side comparison between the statue of an elf and the flesh and bone thing sitting in front of her.

"It is. Only because… I didn't think there was anything left."

Lexi does take note, her eyes flicking between Lewis' features and the carving, chewing her lower lip. "I…it's the only one like it I've run into, anyway. That's why I wanted ta pick it up, it doesn't match th' typology for carvings in the period. I thought it might be a metahuman-created item, they tend to stand out in terms of historical artifacts."

"If by metahuman you mean not-human, then yes. This was shaped," Lewis says, that note of pained envy creeping into his tone again.

"I can't show you how. It's-" pause to get control of his voice "-not something I can do. But the rock… it's shaped with the mind, as easily as the flesh can be shaped, or the mind, or dreams." This really isn't helping him not sound creepy, is it?

The mutant woman considers that. "…shaped mentally." she says, sounding fascinated. "Through magic? Or just directly by the mind?"

"Yes," replies the elf, turning the statue back to face him. Once more do his green eyes focus on the statue's face and he frowns when he just can't remember who this was, or even if he'd never met this elf.

"Sometimes, I can tell the age of the magic, but this… other than to say 'very old' I can't tell much more," he adds in a tone that is equal parts sad and disgusted.

Lexi rests her hands in her lap, pursing her lips as she thinks. "Do ya know anyone who would know?' she asks slowly. "Or is that…lost?" From the sadness in his tone…she suspects the latter may be the case. As far too many pieces of history are.

Sadness in tone blooms on his face at the question. Silent for a moment, Lewis floats the statue over to Lexi. And by float, he just opens his hand and the statue seems to drift over as it might had there been zero gravity between them.

"Any that I would have known who could possibly have answered that have been too long from me for me to be able to say whether they live or have gone," he says. And now, the fatigue of age and loneliness is a real thing in his words, choking the feel of him speaking. He 'pushes' to his feet from his 'chair' - read: Lewis lowers his feet back to the ground.

"I'm sorry. As far as I know, there are none left who can help you." And Savith himself isn't sure he wants to.

She takes it from the air as it's offered, cradling it carefully in her hands as she sets it on her lap, though Lexi doesn't take her eyes off Lewis. Her thumb idly brushes over the figure's carved clothing, along the smooth curve of the shoulder, somehow not as worn as it should be by age. She nods slightly at the apology, thinking quietly now. "Do…you want to recall this? Have it remembered?" she murmurs softly. "It could be recorded. Your voice. Your history, what you recall. Only pieces ever do, and from the sound of it, any piece of your story that does would be especially precious."

The offer to record it, to have it remembered beyond him, actually has the elf chuckling. It's a cold sound, hollow and utterly lacking in joy and life. He pulls a cigarette from the box in his pocket.

"What do you think the centuries of poems, plays, novels, and songs are?" he questions as he lights up. The tiny flame bursts to life, illuminating just how flat and joyless his eye are, how dull the sad emotions make what can be seem of their color. It hints that his eyes should be a greener green, the color of an emerald or a lush forest, instead of this flat greyish-green.

"The trouble is that even I can't remember it all. I can only go so far on myself with sending, and I am incapable of Dreamwalking on myself. Those first stories, songs… they are forgotten in the fog of time in my mind."

Lexi nods. "Of course they are. Few people got that kinda memory. Especially after THAT long, I'd think." she points out. "People don't realize…th' history we have? It's th' tiniest bit of actual history. The history that people saw, that was important enough for them to remember, important enough to record, important enough to survive to the present." She taps the statue. "Just fragments, that we try ta weave stories back out of. Sometimes we don't even know if it's true. Sometimes it doesn't entirely matter to who's telling th' story, or who's hearin' it."

She cocks her head. "Doesn't mean that yer story isn't important, or worthy of bein' remembered, even if there are holes in it."

It's a smile, if still sad, that Lewis gives to Lexi. Another drag, another lungful, another exhale.

"I won't say no. I'm already making copies of what I can but… Come. it's late and no doubt that man will return with 'friends'. We'll find a better place to continue this conversation."

Lexi hmms, then nods, putting the statue carefully back in its briefcase then closing it back up once it's secure in its padded enclosure. "Sure, have someplace in mind?" she says, getting to her feet as she lets the briefcase dangle in one hand.

"I was headed home. It has most of my notebooks, if you wanted to read them. And if you're hungry, I can order something. Otherwise, I can meet you somewhere else," says Lewis as he resettles his guitar's strap to his shoulder.

"Huh. Well…ah…I can meet ya there or…I guess if ya can take me too…" Lexi says a little uncertainly. She's never really got used to the idea of flying outside of a nice, safe (relatively) vehicle of some sort. But she figures she can put up with it for a bit if needed.

"I can carry you, or we can walk… Or I can give you the address and when you get there you get there. Personally, I'm a little concerned for the trouble that may try to find you," says Lewis, finishing his cigarette and once more crushing that one with his mind in the grass.

He remembered: she doesn't like the smell.

Lexi quirks her lips, obviously turning it over in her mind, then sighs. "I'd say just carry me, buuuut, I'd have ta have ya fly me back to my bike afterwards, an' I don't wanna put ya out. Go on an' give me th' address an' I'll head over and meetcha there." she suggests.

And yes, she doesn't…keen nose and all that. But she's far too polite to point that out to someone who obviously needed a smoke.

Numb nose that he is, the elf doesn't seem to realize that the scent lingers on his clothes even after source is gone. Nodding to her logic, Lewis gives his address, not terribly far away, before lifting from the ground and flying away into the darkness.